Category Archives: prints and drawings

prints and drawings

Society Felix Meritis

In 1801, a demonstration of electricity was held at the Felix Meritis Society in Amsterdam. The Society was established for the promotion of music, drawing, physics, commerce and literature and its building, designed by Jacob Otten Husly, opened to the public on October 31, 1788. These engravings depict some of the many concerts, debates, lectures, and demonstrations held there.

Reinier Vinkeles (1741-1816) after a drawing by Jacques Kuyper (1761-1808), Zaal der Natuurkunde in het gebouw der Maatschappyë Felix Meritis binnen Amsterdam = Salle de Phijsique dans l’Edifiçe de la société Felix Meritis a Amsterdam [Hall of Physics in the Building of the Felix Meritis Society in Amsterdam], 1801. Graphic Arts Collection Dutch prints

Reinier Vinkeles (1741-1816) after a drawing by Peter Barbier (1717-1780) and Jacques Kuyper (1761-1808), Teken Zaal in het gebouw der Maatschappyë Felix Meritis binnen Amsterdam = salle de Dessin dans l’edifiçe de la Société Felix Meritis a Amsterdam [Drawing Room in the Building of the Felix Meritis Society in Amsterdam], 1801. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection Dutch prints

Reinier Vinkeles (1741-1816) after a drawing by Noach van der Meer Jr. (1741-1822), Muzyk zaal in het gebouw der Maatschappyë Felix Meritis binnen Amsterdam = Salle de Conçert dans l’Edifiçe de la Société Felix Meritis a Amsterdam [Concert Hall in the Building of Felix Meritis Society in Amsterdam], 1791. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection Dutch prints

Reinier Vinkeles (1741-1816), Gehoor zaal in het gebouw der Maatschappyë Felix Meritis binnen Amsterdam. = Auditoire dans l’Edifiçe de la Société Felix Meritis a Amsterdam [Audience in the Building of the Felix Meritis Society in Amsterdam], 1794. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection Dutch prints

Frasconi

Antonio Frasconi (1919-2013), Santa Barbara [triptych], 1951. Color woodcut.
Graphic Arts Collection GA2008.00937

This triptych was created in 1951 not long after Frasconi married Leona Pierce and moved to her hometown of Santa Barbara, California. He found a day job with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where he also had his first one man show.

Born in Argentina and raised in Uruguay, Frasconi died ten months ago in Norwalk Connecticut at the age of 94. It was a scholarship to the Art Students League that provided the young artist with access to New York City where he learned printmaking. Within a year he was showing his work at the Brooklyn Museum.

Frasconi went on to specialize in woodcuts, using them to illustrate hundreds of books (OCLC lists 261), many of which are here at the Princeton University Library. In 1996, the Grolier Club gave him their gallery for an exhibition of his books, one of the few living artists celebrated by the Club (GAX Oversize NE539.F86 G72q).

“Sometimes the wood gives you a break and matches your conception of the way it is grained,” Antonio Frasconi told a New York Times reporter in 1963, “But often you must surrender to the grain, find the movement of the scene, the mood of the work, in the way the grain runs.”

Special thanks to the Program in Latin American Studies for this acquisition.

Heinz Edelmann

Cell from The Yellow Submarine, including Ringo, 1968. GC184 Animation Cells Collection

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have a small collection of animation cells, including two from the 1968 film based on the music of The Beatles called Yellow Submarine and one from Walt Disney Studios of Donald Duck, among others. They offer an interesting contrast in styles.

While George Dunning (1920-1979) was the director of Yellow Submarine, Heinz Edelmann (1934-2009) was the creative director and the one most often credited with the overall style of the film. Born in Czechoslovakia and trained in Germany, Edelmann only worked on Yellow Submarine from 1967 to 1968 but it over-shadowed all his other projects, such as the illustrations of Andromedar SR1 (1970, Cotsen Eng 20Q 87723) and German edition of Kenneth Grahame children’s book The Wind in the Willows [Der Wind in den Weiden] (1973).

In his 2009 New York Times obituary, Steven Heller wrote, “Heinz Edelmann, the multifaceted graphic designer and illustrator who created the comically hallucinogenic landscape of Pepperland as art director for the 1968 animated Beatles film Yellow Submarine, died on Tuesday in Stuttgart, Germany. …The movie’s mod-psychedelic look, which typifies the era’s spirited graphic art, emerged around the same time as the related psychedelic work of Terry Gilliam, Alan Aldridge and Victor Moscoso, but it has its own whimsical aesthetic. The bulbous Blue Meanies, which personify an evil mood as actual villains, pursue the innocent, well-coifed cartoon Beatles across an ever-shifting milieu of mysterious seas and holes that can be magically picked up and moved. The yellow submarine itself stops in an ocean of pulsating watches, representing time, to light a cigar for a friendly sea monster.”

Donald Duck first appeared in 1934 and has been drawn by many talented artists over the years, most notably Al Taliaferro (1905-1969), Carl Barks (1901-2000), and Don Rosa (born 1951). Of course, all images of Donald are © Walt Disney Studios

$100

On October 8, 2013, the new $100 note will begin circulating. Once it is issued, any commercial bank, savings and loan, or credit union that orders $100 notes from the Federal Reserve will have its order filled with the new design. According to the U.S. government website , distance, demand, and the policies of individual financial institutions will be the deciding factors in how quickly redesigned $100 notes reach the public, both in the U.S. and in international markets.

While older designs of Federal Reserve notes remain legal tender, and will not be recalled, demonetized or devalued, beginning on October 8, 2013, Federal Reserve Banks will only be paying new design $100 notes out to financial institutions. As older designs make their way through the banking system, they will eventually get returned to the Federal Reserve, where they will be destroyed.

The United States government primarily redesigns U.S. currency to stay ahead of counterfeiting threats and keep counterfeiting levels low. The Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, its Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the United States Secret Service continuously monitor the counterfeiting threats for each denomination of U.S. currency and make redesign decisions based on these threats.
Currency Image Use [from the U.S. government]

Federal law permits color illustrations of U.S. currency only under the following conditions:

The illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated.

The illustration is one-sided and all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use.
18 U.S.C. § 504(1), 31 CFR § 411.1.

Use and reproduction of U.S. currency for advertising purposes prohibited under federal law. Under section 475 of the U.S. Criminal Code, “whoever designs, engraves, prints, makes, or executes, or utters, issues, distributes, circulates, or uses any business or professional card, notice, placard, circular, handbill, or advertisement in the likeness or similitude of any obligation or security of the United States issued under or authorized by any Act of Congress or writes, prints, or otherwise impresses upon or attaches to any such instrument, obligation, or security, or any coin of the United States, any business or professional card, notice, or advertisement, or any notice or advertisement whatever, shall be fined under this title.” 18 U.S.C. § 475.

The County Election

John Sartain (1808-1897) after a painting by George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), The County Election, 1854. Mezzotint and engraving. Signed in plate, l.l.: “Painted by G.C. Bingham”. Signed in plate, l.c.: “Entered According to act of Congress in the year 1854 by G.C. Bingham, in the Clerks Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York”. Signed in plate, l.r.: “Engraved by John Sartain”. Gift of Leonard L. Milberg, Class of 1953. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Four Prints of an Election, 1755-58. Plate III: The Polling, February 1758. Third state. Graphic Arts, GC113 William Hogarth Collection

Not unlike William Hogarth in the 18^th century, George Caleb Bingham painted a raucous 19^th century scene presenting county politics, both good and bad. Although it is not recorded in the picture, we know that he was depicting an 1850 election in Saline County, Missouri, where he lived.

Neither African Americans nor women could vote in this election. In fact, there was no voter registration at all but any white male, conscious or unconscious, could participate. Each man had to swear on the Bible that he hasn’t already voted and then, speak his choice to the judge. Caucusing and drinking are all taking place nearby.

The man seated is the painter George Bingham himself, making sketches.

Barnum’s and Brady’s Corner

New York from the Steeple1

Henry Papprill (1817-1896) after a design by John William Hill (1812-1879), New York with the city of Brooklyn in the distance. From the steeple of St. Paul’s Church, looking east, south and west, 1849. Engraving and aquatint with hand color. Gift of Leonard L. Milberg, Class of 1953. Graphic Arts Collection

From atop the steeple of St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City’s only pre-revolutionary building still standing, located at the intersection of Broadway and Fulton Street, John W. Hill made a magnificent watercolor view of Lower Manhattan, which would serve as the basis for Papprill’s splendid print. The spire of Trinity Church commands the right (southern) part of this vista; at the center is the tower of the former Middle Dutch Church, which housed the city’s main post office. In the left foreground is P.T. Barnum’s Museum of Sensational Curiosities [and] in the center foreground is portrait photographer Mathew Brady’s Daguerrean Miniature Gallery. –From Marilyn Symmes, Impressions of New York (2005)

The corner of Fulton and Broadway today

Mathew Brady occupied two large buildings, the old gallery at the corner of Fulton street and Broadway and the new gallery, No 359 Broadway, over Thompson’s Saloon. The latter gallery is apparently one of the most completely arranged daguerrean galleries in this country or in Europe.

Note all the skylights at Brady’s studio

“Photography: Brady’s Daguerrean Saloon,” 11 June 1853 (Posted at http://www.daguerreotypearchive.org. Published in: Illustrated News (New York) 1:24 (1 June 1853): 384)

“IT is well known to many of our readers that this art has been elevated to a higher point in this country than in the land of its discovery. …Among the most widely celebrated daguerrean artists of our own city, M. B. Brady has been long favorably distinguished, and we have frequently presented our readers with copies of his production. The establishments of Mr. Brady occupy two large buildings, the old gallery, corner of Fulton street and Broadway, and the new gallery, No[.] 359 Broadway, over Thompson’s Saloon. The latter gallery is apparently one of the most completely arranged daguerrean galleries in this country or in Europe. The facilities for first-class pictures appear unrivaled; an additional building has been erected by which the reception room, ladies dressing-room, and operating rooms are on the same floor, being a desirable arrangement.”

One dollar portraits on the second floor in the shadow

The Sun of Anti-Jacobinism

gillray phaeton4

James Gillray (1756-1815), Phaeton alarm’d! Hand colored etching. March 22d 1808. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown (1873-1939), Class of 1895. Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process

After the title:

Now all the horrors of the heav’ns he spies, / And monstrous shadows of prodigious size, / That, deck’d with stars, lie scatter’d o’er the skies. – / Th’ astonish’d youth, where-e’er his eyes could turn, / Beheld the universe around him bum: / The world was in a blaze! – See, Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The British politician George Canning (1770-1827) was appointed Foreign Secretary in the new government of the Duke of Portland in 1807 and served until 1809. Here, Gillray portrays him as the Greek god Phaethon, driving a celestial chariot across the political constellations of the sky. Below Pitt is seen as his father, Apollo, and Fox as Pluto. The countries of the world are in flames while Napoleon rides a Russian bear.

We are fortunate to have this print back in our collection. For many years, it was crushed behind a built-in wood cabinet and only reemerged last week when the cabinet, and the room it was in, were demolished.

Goethe mixes poetry with visual art

Graphic Arts recently acquired this fragile booklet with six poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) along with six etching after drawings he had made a number of years earlier and chose specifically for this publication. The plates were etched by the theatrical painter Carl Wilhelm Holdermann (active 1820-1840) and by Carl Lieber (active 1820s), a protégé of Goethe and instructor at the Weimar drawing school. The text was printed by Caesar Mazzucchi in Magdeburg, and the portfolio published by Goethe’s friend, Carl August Schwerdgeburth (1784-1878).

The project was described by Goethe himself (translated and printed by Antony Griffiths in German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe 1994):

The undertaking of several worthy artists to edit etched plates after my drawings must be welcome to me in more than one sense. As music is welcome to the poet, whereby the musician brings alive his poem for himself and others, so it is a pleasure to see here old long-faded sheets rescued from the stream of Lethe. On the other hand, I have long thought that in the information and account that I have given of my life, drawing is often mentioned, whereby one might not unreasonably ask why, after repeated effort and continuous enthusiasm, nothing that gives any artistic satisfaction has emerged . . . The finest benefit that an art-lover can get from his unachieved strivings is that the society of the artist remains dear and valuable, supportive and useful to him. And he who is not in a position to create himself, will, if he only knows and judges himself wisely, profit from intercourse with creative men, and, if not on this side, at least from another side form and educate himself.

Radirte Blätter nach Handzeichnungen von Goethe herausgegeben von C.A.Schwerdgeburth (Weimar: Schwerdgeburth, 1821). 6 etchings after drawings by Goethe . Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process

With the feeling that these sketches that are now laid before the public cannot entirely overcome their inadequacies themselves, I have added a small poem to each, so that their inner meaning can be perceived, and the viewer might be laudibly deceived, as if he saw with his eyes what he feels and thinks, that is a closeness to the state in which the draughtsman found himself when he committed his few lines to paper (Über Kunst und Alterthum, III, part 3, 1822, pp.142-50).

Although Goethe liked to sketch, he noted, “… I was intelligent enough to recognise that I had no talent for the visual arts and that my efforts in this direction were misplaced. In my drawing I lacked sufficient feeling for substantiality. I had a certain fear of letting the objects make their full impact on me; on the contrary, it was the insubstantial and unemphatic elements that appealed to me . . . Nor without constant practice did I ever make any progress; and I always had to start again from the beginning if I had ever dropped my drawing for a while.”

Pochoir Progressive

In the 1920s, Thomas Maitland Cleland (1880-1964) was a premier graphic designer, whose career culminated with the cover design for the new Fortune Magazine in 1930. He also created this image of an advertising man and gave Elmer Adler one of a series of progressive pochoir or stencil colored plates to show how the print was made. The cutouts used in making this stencil print are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. There is at least one other copy recorded at the Library of Congress.

Here are the pochoir plates for The Advertising Man, 1929? Stencil progressive. GC032 T.M. Cleland Collection. “Presented to the Princeton Print Club by E.A. July, 1942”.

“The Princeton Print Club announces an exhibition of the paintings, prints, books, and other work of Mr. Thomas M. Cleland. This is the first exhibit of Mr. Cleland’s work in more than forty years. 36 University Place, Gallery B. 2:00 to 4:30 p.m.”– Princeton University Weekly Bulletin, 37, no. 9 (8 November 1947).

See also T. M. (Thomas Maitland) Cleland (1880-1964), The Decorative Work of T.M. Cleland: a Record and Review, with a biographical and critical introduction by Alfred E. Hamill and a portrait lithograph by Rockwell Kent (New York: The Pynson printers, 1929). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize NE539.C57 A3 1929q

“How the White Man Trades in the Congo”

Frederic de Haenen (1853-1928), How the White Man Trades in the Congo, Bringing in Rubber and Hostages, 1906. Gouache and ink wash. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013-

Frederic de Haenen (1853-1928), The Chicotte (The Whipping), January 1906. Gouache and ink wash. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013-

In the January 1906 supplement to The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, a special series of illustrations was published documenting the treatment of Africans by European traders. The article was entitled “Dark Deeds in Darkest Africa: Scenes and Tales of Cruelty in the Congo Free State” by the Rev. J.H. Harris, of the “Regions Beyond” Missionary Union.

“As our readers are well aware,” writes the editor, “The Graphic is not given in the publication of sensational illustrations. In view, however, of the great and historic importance of the terrible events which have taken place in the Congo Free State, the conductors of this journal have thought it only right to depart from their usual rule, and publish the sketches and photographs contained in this supplement—the accuracy of which are absolutely vouched for by Mr. Harris, who was present at the committee of inquiry.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two original drawing for The Graphic. One of them depicts a brutal flogging of a slave with a chicotte, a heavy whip made of animal hide used in this region. The image was made after a photograph and drawn in high contrast to aid in reproduction. The artist, Frederic de Haenen, was one of many illustrators who worked for The Graphic and The Illustrated London News.

A second drawing, titled “How a White man trades in the Congo,” is believed to also be from a 1906 issue of The Graphic. It comes with a caption glued to the bottom, which reads in part, “The natives are required to bring in their toll of rubber every fortnight or twenty days, according to the wish of the individual agent. The sentries are sent out to bring in the rubber workers. In the event of the rubber being either short or not good enough in quality, these sentries also bring in a number of “hostages” which the white man holds and forces to work on his “factorie” [sic] until the relatives bring in extra quantity to redeem them.”

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